Dennis Prager
Dennis Mark Prager is a neoconservative radio host, professional tone troll, and conspiracy theorist who believes that the United States is a Christian nation, and that it's under attack from "secular leftists" who control the media, universities, public education system, and other institutions. Despite being a fairlyextreme conservative, to the point of being a weekly WND columnist, he does moderate on certain issues such as abortion and, to his credit, he does seem to know quite a bit about religion and aspects of United States history. Unfortunately, for every reasonable position he has he seems to say at least ten things that are either blatant lies or mind-fuckingly bizarre. He is also notable for having one of the worst cases of psychological projection ever, even by wingnut standards and for possibly being a worse offender of Jonanismthan Jonah Goldberg himself. He is well known for his opposition to "the left" allowing their "feelings" to get in the way of policy, but when policy hurts his "feelings" he loses his freakin' mind. Hmm... As of recently he's been focusing far more on pushing anti-environmentalism than usual, mainly through global warming denialism ("leftist hysteria" apparently) and myths around DDT bans,23 though he's even gone into some weird "Environmentalism is replacing God" (paraphrasing) territory.4However he is rarely countered largely due to the fact that anyone to the left of radical right can no longer take him seriously anymore anyways,5 though he has a small group of very devoted fans. Imagine his reaction when he realizes that most of today's Jews vote Democrat (and the state of gay rights in Israel). Moving on: Which is why in Iran, where homosexuality is punishable by death, there is perfect gender equality, right? And the crowning gem of the article: Except he states no evidence for that at all. Also notice how he basically says "I'm cool with lesbians but gays are gross." Many of Prager's fans will cry out "he wrote it in '93, he could've changed his views since then!" If that is the case, then he certainly shows no remorse over writing it since he has neither apologized for the article (nor even brings it up that often, probably hoping everyone will forget he wrote it). The essay in question is still used by openly homophobic sites such as the Catholic Education Resource Center. Besides even if Prager has completely changed his views since then he really shouldn't act dumbfounded when people think he's homophobic, since this article is the first result on Google for "Dennis Prager" + "homosexuality," and him acting as if he's being persecuted by gay activists for his beliefs when called out for his apparent homophobia is ridiculous. A glaring problem with Dennis Prager's opposition to gay marriage is the fact he's been divorced twice and married thrice. He actually talks about this on occasion, saying that the argument that divorce threatens marriage is a non sequitur. He goes on to defend his position with an hilariously non sequitur argument himself, saying that "divorce itself no more undermines the institution of marriage than car crashes undermine the institution of driving."8 This is, of course, an example of a false analogy, since you don't swear to be with your car til death do you part. Fighting der Muslims! When Muslim Congressman Keith Ellison was elected to office Prager decided to harass him in the most assholish way possible, writing an article on Townhall that Ellison should not be allowed to take the oath on the Koran but instead the Bible, which would essentially violate the First Amendment.9 He states in the article that allowing Ellison to use the Koran would be more devastating to American values than 9/11. This was a manufactroversy since, according to the Anti-Defamation League: "No Member of Congress is officially sworn in with a Bible. Under House rules, the official swearing-in ceremony is done in the House chambers, with the Speaker of the House administering the oath of office en masse."10 Only in private ceremonies held after the official ceremony can religious texts be used. Prager also ignores the Establishment Clause, but it's likely the Constitution isn't American enough for Prager. He attempted to bullshit his way out of what he wrote on Hannity,11 saying that he was merely making a "request" for Ellison to not use a Koran, despite his article explicitly saying "He (Ellison) should not be allowed to do so -- not because of any American hostility to the Koran, but because the act undermines American civilization." He later attempted to state that the liberal media was on Ellison's side, a sign that he was being persecuted for his "Islamophobia." He is probably too stupid to recognize that there is a difference between criticizing Islam itself and targeting the human rights of a single Muslim who isn't breaking the law, hurting someone, or even a fundamentalistfor that matter. Most confusingly, Prager said that Ellison's beliefs were irrelevant, it was the ceremony that mattered since it was an "unbroken tradition" since George Washington. This is incorrect sinceJohn Quincy Adams was sworn in on a law book, Franklin Pierce simply affirmed the oath as opposed to being sworn in, LBJ used a Catholic Missal, and Congressman Henry Waxman never used a Christian Bible. Some Jewish officeholders, such as Governor Linda Lingle, have also been sworn in on the Tanakh, but Prager said this was irrelevant since any Jews who used the Tanakh were "Secularists who didn't believe what was in it anyway." Firstly, a secularist may just want a separation between church and state (like many of the Founding Fathers), they can still be personally religious and believe in a holy book, such as the Tanakh, and there is no way for Prager to know their personal beliefs. Secondly, this contradicts Prager's claim that the officeholders belief is irrelevant and that it's only the ceremony that matters. Prager's comments led to him being criticized by the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. Only the theocraticAmerican Family Association and Virgil Goode supported Prager. Creepiness One of the most disturbing articles he's written is "The Rape of a Name Is Also Rape" in which he writes that being falsely accused of rape is just as bad, if not worse, than actual rape.12While defamation is a terrible crime, it is obviously not on par with rape, but again that is somehow a "leftist" view. When it comes to relationships there's no one to go to for worse advice than the Pragernater. This is made especially apparent in his essay "When a Woman Isn't In the Mood: Part II" where he gives eight reasons as to why women should submit to having sex with their husbands even when they’re not in the mood.13 He is just able enough to write it in a way so he can plausibly deny that he was advocating for marital rape. However, he sure as hell wasn't being sensitive to victims of marital rape and at one points calls "childhood trauma" one of the "myriad" of reasons that women try to get out of sex. By the way if you take his advice by constantly pressuring your wife into having sex as opposed to trying to "get in the mood" together the relationship will probably end in resentment and divorce.14 Also, having sex with someone who's not in the mood doesn't sound pleasant to most sane people. Later, in an article on Todd Akin's rape comments, he is impressively hard on Akin, showing some hope that he will be sensitive to rape victims.15 He ends up blowing this opportunity when he tries to say that some rapes may not really be rape, so long as they're not "forcible rapes." Of course if you point out his borderline sociopathic attitude towards rape victims he will just call you another "leftist" who lets "feelings" get in the way of "logic" (aka. his feelings). Prager's creepiness reached its height when he wrote an article that was horribly titled "Sandusky Abused Children, NCAA Abuses History" in which he attacked the NCAA for stripping Penn State of their football wins in the aftermath of the Jerry Sandusky pedophilia scandal.16 He accused the NCAA of trying to rewrite history and then went off on a separate rant on how the evil libs in California were "rewriting" history to include minorites. Most of the creepiness came from how callous he was towards the rape victims, thus proving that he's not one of those feely lefties who are controlled by emotion. For those who believe this to be an exaggeration the article includes this paragraph: One would think that if the media was as liberal as Prager claimed they are they could've simply used this single, fucked up sentence to destroy his career but instead it was largely ignored and the article itself still managed to get 34 Facebook "likes." Fear-mongering Prager's greatest enemy is not the gays, or even the feminists, but instead "the left". Who Prager believes the left consists of is unclear since his definition of the left apparently means thatBarack Obama is our first leftist president, with the possible exception of FDR.17 This is another blatant lie since JFK, LBJ, Carter, and even Nixon and Eisenhower governed to the left of Obama. The left is also working hard to turn university students into bisexuals.18 He has even accused the "secular left" of being anti-Semitic (that must be a lot of Jews, then); during a debate Christopher Hitchens confronted him on this claim and Prager couldn't back it up, which led to Hitchens accusing Prager of being "evasive."19 Basically "the left" is based off of overgeneralizations that are built on either straw man logical fallacies or the spotlight fallacy if he bothers to find some left-wing fringe group. Ironically he repeatedly accuses the pinko liberals of generalizing the poor conservatives.2021 Sadly, his fans pretty much buy into whatever he says and seem utterly convinced he is one of thegreatest intellectuals of our time, even though he basically just scares them into thinking that everyone (the media, public schools, universities, Hollywood) is out to turn them and theirchildren into liberal homosexuals which can only be avoided by listening to Prager's show or buying his books so he may show you what American values really are. Groupthink at its very best. Breakdown Since Barack Obama's reelection and the repeal of DOMA, Prager appears to have grown increasingly crazy. Prager compared the repeal of California's Prop 8 to the Egyptian coup, because he believed it was anti-democratic. He blamed the repeal of Prop 8 on the "Supreme Court of the United States, colluding judges and the Democratic Party of California".22 After all this is the first time courts have overridden the will of the majority. Recently he went even further off the rails and wrote a column about how efforts to promote LGBT tolerance would lead to a fascist takeover of America.23 What tolerance has to do with a nationalistic, corporationist, and anti-democracy political philosophy that believes in quashing the rights of minorities we can't be entirely sure of. He still think it's the left that's hysterical, by the way (remember what we said about psychological projection?). Recently, in an article on Intelligent Design, he basically pulled the old "atheists have more faith than creationists",24 and then exaggerates the theory of a multiverse as being more influential than it actually is. Fun Facts * Prager wrote an article in 2011 that "predicted" that during Obama's State of the Union address the "Under God" motto in Congress would not be shown based off how it hadn't been seen in recent years due to godless cameramen.26 The first statement was incorrect, since about five minutes into the address the motto is seen several times and the second statement was a blatant lie as seen by a picture of the 2010 SOTU address.2728 * Claimed that feminism and women abandoning marriage for careers was responsible for higher depression rates among women,29 despite studies showing that housewives have higher rates of depression than working women.303132 Whoopsie! * Claimed liberal teachers and CBS News (it doesn't make much more sense in context) was responsible for "indoctrinating" young girls with feminism which was making them "oversensitive" to men's advances, which in turn explained the reason higher levels of sexual harassment were being reported by young girls.33 The idea that girls had a better idea of what sexual harassment was and weren't as afraid to report it never crossed his mind. * Counts as one of his fans Mike J. Nelson (of MST3K and Rifftrax fame) -- heartbreaking. * Counts as one of his fans Adam Carolla (of Loveline and The Man Show fame) -- also heartbreaking. * Persistently claims that his preference for children to be raised by heterosexuals than homosexuals is a perfectly rational one despite studies showing it makes no difference.343536 * Took a Dorito Ad way too seriously, believing it to be racist against African-Americans, even though the race of the actors was irrelevant.37 * To his credit, he's managed to anger Randroids and Ron Paul fans in the past, mainly when he raged on Paul for saying that blacks are disproportionately executed.38 Unfortunately for Prager, Ron Paul was actually right in this case.39 Also, the fact that Prager accuses Paul of being a "radical lefty" during his rant makes his definition of a "leftist" even more confusing. * Is one of the greatest Chickenhawks of all time with his continued support of the Iraq War and pro-torture stance. * He is fervently opposed to Obamacare and has used disproven talking points to back his arguments. This blog deconstructs said talking points quite nicely and proves how intellectually lazy Prager is. * Even the libertarians have taken potshots at him due to his anti-marijuana legalization stance.40 Plus, he basically lumped them in with "leftists" (again). Wonkette went after him as well, briefly uniting libertarian and liberal bloggers in their disdain for the man.41 * His lax attitude towards rape made him a favorite target at liberal blog Sadly, No!. Note: Though this page could be much longer due to its subject saying something outrageous or batshit every other week, we ask you to refrain from adding any more examples or this could enter Gish Gallop territory. If you must, replace one of the other "fun facts" instead. Prager "University" He has also started his own non-profit online program called Prager University which, keeping up with his paranoia around universities turning students into secular bisexual leftists, has the totally not bizarre motto "Undoing the damage of the University... five minutes at a time." It actually presents history and politics from a hard-right point of view, which includes rampantNew Deal denialism, promotion of the Laffer curve, Europhobia, and an off the walls weird interpretation of liberalism.42 Guest hosts on the site include Jonah Goldberg and Amity Shlaes. Prager also has a video explaining reasons marriage is healthy to a couple for non-legal reasons, which is kind of dickish given his position on gay marriage.43 |} Adapted from RationalWiki Category:People Category:American people Category:Insane Category:Chickenhawks Category:Conspiracy Category:Racism Category:Racist Category:Misogyny Category:Homophobia Category:Jewish Category:Neo-Conservatives Category:Right-wing Activists Category:Republican Category:Things Liberals hate Category:Things Liberals Fear Category:Not Liberal Category:1948 births Category:Things Conservatives Love